Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, February 18, 2021

President Biden...

was encouraged about America becoming more open and welcoming to POC and bi-racial families when he said this at his Wisconsin townhall meeting:



 "I'm going to say something that's going to get me in trouble...think about it, if you want to know where the American public is, look at the money being spent on advertising. Did you ever 5 years ago think every second or third ad out of 5 or 6 would be biracial couples?" 



But not all Americans see that as progress and an acknowledgement of the reality of our American landscape. There are Americans out there who resent seeing bi-racial, POC, or LGBTQ in tv ads. It irritates them, and it makes them cynical about the reasons this particular demographic is represented at all. 

Those folks are mostly right wingers (Trumpers) who begrudge having to share their representation and presence (white) in American culture with other people. They don't understand why, and they don't like it.

I'll share what those people are saying to each other about this phenomenon President Biden spoke of. 

I visit right wing blogs to read what they're saying. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact, it's better than reading a distillation of their thinking in other media. I find it fascinating to read how they think and feel about cultural changes.

Here they are. In their own words:


bocopro:  "Here’s the problem: Most of the commercials I see on TV today show either (1) black people, (2) mixed-race couples, (3) mixed-race children, (4) gay or lesbian couples, (5) white males who are morons, or (6) women, very often black, in charge of things. 

 These days it’s truly rare to see white couples with white children in commercials, and white males are generally depicted as arrogant, clueless, troublemaking, rudderless knuckledraggers, if not just plain sissies. It’s as if mass-media execs want the world to believe that at least half the US population is African or African mixed with something else and to be white is to be out of touch with reality. 

 Reality is that the US is less than 14% African and nearly 16% Latino with somewhere close to 7% Asian including everything from Tehran to Tokyo and Mumbai to Moscow. . . which means, of course, that the US population is STILL fairly near 66% white European, ancestrally speaking. 

 As for the gays, lesbians, trannies, and so on, the entire LGBT fragment of US population is somewhere around 4.5%, despite the fact that when asked, most people assume it to be well over 20%. 

So what’s the deal? Are we being deliberately misled – AGAIN – by the media as we’ve been on the “pandemic” and Russia! Russia! Russia! collusion and racism and voter fraud and “believe all women who claim sexual abuse”? 

 If so, what’s the goal? How will we be better off with African lesbians running the show for everybody? 

And if old white men truly ARE the source of all our problems, then why did we hire one as CEO again, ignoring a young gay guy, a woman who claims native ancestry, and a dark-skinned mixed-race female?”


kidme37: 

Marketing. When enough people believe something, no matter how absurd, lots of companies hop on so as to not alienate the idiot perceived consumers of their product. Somehow magically overnight, their product contributes to the fight (or support) of the latest pile of nonsense because the kids and way too many adults all believe the crap. This is how moronic concepts grow into monsters. 

Gluten Free ! 
Organic ! 
Supports Black People ! 
Cage Free! 
Combats Toenail Fungus ! 
We Like Homos !


And this:

GeeeZ: "I don’t mind seeing a HUGELY disproportionate amount of minorities on TV Ads (and not just ads, but Hallmark films, QVC, and other places I wouldn’t have expected it), but DID ADVERTISERS GET A MEMO? And could we see it? They say our KIDS are being mind controlled in schools……….Of course they are. But they’re not the only ones." 





This discussion found on Quora would help the folks quoted above to better understand why POC and other minorities are becoming more visible in television ads:



Q: Why are there so many Black people in commercials? They’re 12% of the population but seem to be in 90% of commercials. 

A:   Lacking a citation to affirm your perception (Black people seem to appear in 90% of commercials), I am going to just address why the casting of ads has changed from all-white actors to actors of many races and cultures in the United States. 

 Advertising has two primary goals: To sell products. To make potential customers think of a product or brand first when they need that product. (This is called “branding.”) 

Society has become more integrated, with new immigrants and new cultures changing the demographic mix of advertising audiences. Businesses spend millions researching their customers, with a specific goal of growing their customer base. They are constantly seeking new customers and ways to expand their markets. That means as society changes, advertising changes to take advantage of new markets and growing customer opportunities. 

 There has been a change in brand marketing in recent years, with the broader acceptance of LGBTQ people, the arrival of new immigrant groups, and an awareness that younger Americans in particular are more accepting of interracial and multicultural lifestyles. Messaging has changed to ensure marketing is acceptable to these desirable younger audiences. Mass advertising (TV, radio, and print ads) must reach as many people and audiences as possible, because ads are costly to create and place. 

Companies aim their ads broadly to reflect as many people as they can in their ads. The idea is that if you see people in ads who look like you, you will be more receptive to the ad message, and more easily perceive the product or service on offer as possibly of value to you. 

Yes, there is a certain amount of “virtue-signalling” in ads, as companies and ad agencies try to reflect the aims and beliefs of more activist young people and new communities. This can sometimes be effective, but more often just annoys all demographic groups because it is so blatantly insincere. 

Companies and ad agencies both suffer from a dearth of diversity within their own organizations, which has often led to really bad ads with messaging that is off-tone and even offensive. But they keep trying it. 

If the ads you see seem heavily slanted toward a demographic group that does not look exactly like you, it may simply be that research has shown the programming you are watching has a large audience of Black viewers the advertiser is trying to reach. America is changing. Advertising reflects those changes.

11 comments:

Ema Nymton said...

*
I am not down-playing the threat. The reactionary Republican'ts white domestic terrorists are dangerous. But the threats they represent are not new in USA. They have been around since before before USA was founded.

A thing to keep in mind is that there is not really that many whack-jobs. What they have going for them is they have public airways to spread their messages. Let them speak. Their messages are a waste of time.

Again, keep in mind, in USA the masses are law biding and peace loving. They believe in the justice systems to protect them.

Ema Nymton
~@:o}-
*

Jerry said...

It's not the people in the ads that bother me, it's the ads themselves. They are so repetitive and annoying, I just got turned off of their product.
I search out ad free alternative viewing and listening.
As for what your article is talking about, it depends on the success of the ad. I have not studied the numbers, but I'm sure the advertiser knows whether, or not their ad is working, thus justifying what they are presenting in their ads.
To those who object, they are the ones who need to question their reality of the make up of the country.
If your biggest problem is some black guy is trying to sell you cooking oil, good for you. And if all you saw in that ad was a black man, get your thinking straight. This is the twenty first century.
As with all ads people need to have a little sales resistance and question what they are seeing and being told.

Anonymous said...

"I believe that had Rush not gone on the radio, America would be FAR more lost to Leftism than it even is now. He couldn’t stop the flow of liberalism because the Left set it up, as it did FOX, basically constantly suggesting that “anybody who listens to Limbaugh is a know-nothing racist nut,” but he had MANY listeners who loved him and influence the Conservative talk show hosts who are on today.

Thank you, Rush….We need you now even more but, as all things American today, only Conservatives were really inspired or influence by you; Liberals didn’t have the guts to even give your points a thought.

God bless you for all you did, you’ll never be forgotten. America owes you a LOT."


This is why America is so fked up! Read the above and weep.

Jerry said...

I can't resist Shaw,
After reading anonymous 10:07
I repeat my last line - "As with all ads people need to have a little sales resistance and question what they are seeing and being told."
And ad:
ESPECIALLY POLITICAL BS.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jerry, The quote from Anon @10:07 is sickening. But it also gives us an insight as to why so many Americans supported Trump (I often get Trump and Limbaugh mixed up. In my mind they're made of the same cloth: boorish, racist, mean-spirited, full of invective.

And the folks who supported Limbaugh are the same who support Trump.

It's a mystery to those of us who think our leaders should appeal to our better angels, not our devils.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anonymous @10:07

That's horrible! What sort of people admire a man like Limbaugh. Since most of us never knew him personally, we can only judge him by his words. And his words were hateful and hurt America.

dunkinville said...

Friends, take your time and enjoy your day today... There's no Rush.

skudrunner said...

Ms. Shaw, Limbaugh was the wallace, lemon, cuomo, ruhle and countless others on the left so hateful and hurtful seems to go both ways. Biggest difference is the umber of haters on the left far exceed the number of haters on the right. One station versus seven and several newspapers and magazines. Yep hate comes from the right.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud "Ms. Shaw, Limbaugh was the wallace, lemon, cuomo, ruhle and countless others on the left so hateful and hurtful seems to go both ways."

Absolutely and unequivocally WRONG! None of those you mentioned EVER mocked minorities, people suffering from AIDS, Parkinson's disease, children, women. Limbaugh made a career by being a loud-mouth bully.

"Limbaugh's career never recovered from his 2012 implosion when he castigated and insulted a Georgetown University graduate student, Sandra Fluke, who testified before Congress about health care and access to contraception. Limbaugh called her out by name, labeling her a “slut” and a "prostitute," insulted her parents on the air, and suggested Fluke post videos of herself having sex on the Internet. His demented outbursts, which lasted days, sparked an unprecedented advertiser exodus from Limbaugh's nationally syndicated show. In following years, he was routinely demoted from major market AM outposts and moved over to stations that served as ratings doormats." --Eric Boehlert

We can draw a direct line from Limbaugh's hateful rhetoric and lies to the attack on the US Capitol. None of the people you listed in your comment were involved in Trump's BIG LIE -- that he won the election. None of them.

Your bothsiderism is b.s. It wasn't a mob of armed lefties inspired by the people you named that attacked the US Capitol, killed a policeman, maimed others, and went looking to assassinate Trump's own vice president and the Democratic Speaker of the House.



Mike said...

"and white males are generally depicted as arrogant, clueless, troublemaking, rudderless knuckledraggers,"
He just described trumpers.

Les Carpenter said...

Well Anonymous I listened to El Rushbo 25-30 years ago. I stopped for one reason and one reason only, I got smarter. Much smarter. So, El Rushbo became just bloviating bigoted hot air and I stopped.